TUTORIAL: CORNER PUNCH MEDALLION

Okay - you asked for it and here it is. My first online tutorial.

In yesterday's post I showed you a card I made using a new technique I had learned. Today I'm going to show you how to make this wonderful snowflake card. You begin by dividing a circle into even sections. Think of cutting a pie.

So, let's get baking!

1. Cut two 3.75" circles. One from cardstock the other from computer paper. I used Nestabilities and the BigShot but you can use whatever circle cutting system you prefer.

2. Fold the computer paper in half being careful to line up the arcs.

3. Fold the paper in half again.

4. Fold in half again. Make sure with each fold to carefully line up the arcs and make a nice sharp point.

5. Unfold the paper. You will have a "pie" with 8 equally sized triangles.

6. Fold the paper in half and place on the BACK of the cardstock circle carefully lining up the edges. With a pencil, draw a line on the back of the cardstock. When finished DO NOT MOVE THE PAPER!

7. IMPORTANT!!! WITHOUT MOVING THE PAPER, lay it open on the cardstock then fold along another fold line and trace the line onto the cardstock. If you move the paper your pieces of pie will NOT remain a consistent size. Ask me how I know this!!!!

8. Repeat step 7 along a third fold line.

9. Repeat step 8 along the 4th fold line and set aside. TIP: Keep your paper template for future projects to save time.

10. Remove the plastic guide from your corner punch.

11. Place the lined cardstock into the punch so that the entire design will be punched into the cardstock. With this particular punch and circle size the edge of the punch slides up even with the point formed by the pencil lines. If you enlarge this photo you will see bright green lines on each side of the punch design. This is where I lined up the lines of my first "piece of pie". Punch the design and then rotate to the next triangle.

12. In the second triangle, line up the punch edge at the point of the penciled lines and the edge of the first punched design so that you are punching just at the edge of the first punched design. (Enlarge photo to see placement.)

13. Repeat steps 11&12 until all the triangles have been punched. The photo below shows the medallion I just created on the right and a variation using the same punch on the left.

The real key is to play and have fun with it to see what you can come up with. Since the medallion we just created looks so much like a snowflake I decided to make a winter card.

For this card I embossed a piece of 4x51/4" white card stock using the Cuttlebug Embossing folder and the BigShot then punch the corners using the same decorative corner punch. (NOTE: put your plastic guide back on the punch before punching the corners.) I layered this onto a cardbase of Night of Navy.

Using my circles and scalloped circles Nestabilities I die cut the largest scallop and adhered the punched medallion to it. The next layer is composed of a 2.5" white circle backed by a 2.5"scalloped circle of Night of Navy. These "nest" together perfectly so that you just see a ring of scallops behind the white. (DUH! Do you think thats why they call them Nestabilities?????)

The final layer is a 2" Nestabilities circle cut and embossed from Night of navy. I stamped a snowflake in Craft White ink in the center using a snowflake stamp from the retired Stampin'Up! set 'SNOWFLAKES' and heat embossed it using White embossing powder. I placed a light blue jeweled brad in the center and popped it up on the card using dimensionals.

And there you have it. A new way to use an old tool that really gives your card some added "punch".

Thanks for visiting today. If you try this technique let me know. I'd really love to see what you come up with.

Jill